


Commander Week(-ness)

by Akheloispione



Series: History's small cuttings with its large axe [4]
Category: Guild Wars (Video Game), Guild Wars 2 (Video Game), Guild Wars Series (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Guild Wars 2 Commander Week
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-24
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:20:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24357199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akheloispione/pseuds/Akheloispione
Summary: The fog on the meadow gradually fades as the Dawn rises and with her, the precious child doomed to not know love...
Series: History's small cuttings with its large axe [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1259432
Kudos: 1





	1. Origins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Where does your Commander come from ?  
> How did they grow up ?  
> Who influenced them when they were young and impressionable ?  
> What were their goals and aspirations ?  
> If they are Sylvari, what was it like waking up from the Dream ?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy !

> Universe : History's small cuttings with its large axe ([fr] Petites coupes de l’Histoire avec sa grande hache)  
>  Part 4 : Commander Week(-ness) ([fr] La semaine du faible Commandant)  
>  Chapter 1 : Origins ([fr] Origines)

A complicated name. A lot of letters for a cacophonous result. Her name sounded awful. And so complicated.  
The mender's eyelids closed and opened in a gentle, bewildered flutter. It was the first time, but not the last, someone's brain stopped working when they heard her name.  
People always remembered the name of the person who inspired them. After all, someone's origins weren't the name, the way they were called, apostrophized, and identified ? A hero's story began with his name.  
But hers was too complex. So the few people who called her - and not by those titles, each one heavier to bear than the other - had given her a nickname. Finally, the nickname erased the name. And the titles erased the nickname.

**Lotus**.

The bark shone a light green with matte and shaded patterns. The delicate petals adorning her head danced, in the wind, in a pretty pale pink illuminated by yellowish-orange here and there. A little pollen. A luminescence glow of a swamp-blue, one of stagnant water tarnished by the mud.

So they called her **Lotus**.

A simple name. Short. Two syllables. Like _Edan_. Another name : the one carved and wrapped around Lotus' thin wrist. The name of her soulmate. The swelling of her thicker skin broke the lily-pad and the water in a bump drawn with much love. _Edan_ ; a golden arabesque.

The skin on her fingertip grazed Edan. The position of the mark was perfect. Easily concealed with gloves or sleeves. The others saw it upside down. As in a mirror, they could only see the reflection, while Lotus could contemplate the denomination, the original version, alone. The straightness and the firmness of the writing, the suppleness in the curvature of the phonemes, and above all, the soothing and softness of the name despite the extra peel on her bark. And also, the print was easy to touch, embrace, and kiss.  
A complex name erased by others. A nickname. Many titles. Another name on her body.

* * *

  
  
There were few soulmates in this world. And even fewer within the sylvari.  
The Dream. The Pale Tree. The Grove ; where Lotus was born. Greenery and innocence everywhere. Leaves and flowers and grass and more greenery. White bubbles floating in the air and resonant laughter.  
Like all her brothers and sisters, Lotus should have been amazed but not surprised when she saw her home for real. Amazed by the difference between Dream and Reality. But not surprised as if the sylvari discovered the Grove for the first time as if the sylvari had never seen it in the Dream.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Lotus sat on the ground, on the small path, facing the waterfall whose water smoothed the rock. The place was somewhat secret. Still a little quiet. She closed her eyes. The scenery vanished, the sounds faded away slowly but quickly. The tinkling of the water was replaced by the sound of a blade.  
She tried to relive the snippets of what the Dream had allowed her to see. Walking in the Dream was for Lotus to be nauseous, trying to discern the face of an armed stranger as a thick fog obscured her vision and the rain kept falling from the clouds of a plain grey, empty of darkness and anger. The sky cried like an inconsolable lover.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
She had no sense of belonging, no sense of familiarity in this endless mist what was her Wild Hunt. At times, the gaseous haze that concealed the man would dissipate a little. Only when she read the precepts of Ventari or listened to stories about Rohan. And only then, on the night that followed, would the engraving react. A faint hum. A distant caress. Very distant. Yet this anemic, sickly echo full of beautiful promise had forged her poor fate.  
No one had really influenced her. Her youth faded as the years went by and she couldn't see the count. Edan and the man were the only ones who had impressed her... had left their mark on her. Her aspirations were obvious and sometimes pursued another goal, but the warrior of the dawn always came back on the road.  
  
  
For now : the human. This foreign knight.  
Lotus stepped forward in her imagination and he stepped back. Something stirred in the pit of her stomach. It was more accurate to say that he didn’t move, motionless and stiff as a dead man, but in spite of her steps - no, her run - towards her, the distance kept getting greater and greater. The twisting of her belly intensified.  
The mist changed to the shade of birches foliage. The slip of the water and the gnawing minerals came back to the ears of the thirdborn.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
She was a sylvari. The Grove was her home. The other sylvari were her family. Yet she felt no roots with all of this.  
Her origins were the mysterious man leaving in tatters of mist. Lotus didn't come from a pod, not from the Tree. It came from that feeling that lit up her wrist. It grew all over Tyria, in every nook and cranny where Edan and the mortal could hide.  
She had never stopped traveling for the sole purpose of finding her half. That love somehow devoured her. An almost unhealthy way. Naughty and ironic. More than affection, it was a desire to fill the emptiness that now and forever resided in her heart.  
The golden ink had never hurt her, had never done her any good. In fact, there was nothing that crossed the grooves, as if the bond with her soulmate didn't exist... didn't exist anymore. Edan couldn't possibly be dead, she thought.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
But nothing passed through the name. A sentimental, physical silence. The bond didn't sing to reassure her.  
She continued walking, always one step after the other, on all the routes, using all the exits.  
  
Lotus continued to travel, to do what her blade saw fit and right to do while the void cried something else.  
The road was long and she didn’t know at which junction she became the Commander. Disconnected from the Dream, detached from reality, she must have missed a sign.  
The link didn't light up.  
Her heavy footsteps dissolved in the silence of the journey. Her hands came close to her mouth and warmed as she blew in. She exhaled and caused a cloud of mist.  
Edan. A match. A warrior. A blade. Still deaf and dumb, the silent connection didn’t manifest itself... at the beginning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > I don't own anything ; All the characters belong to ArenaNet except Lotus (Original female sylvari Character).


	2. Champion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How did your Commander feel about being chosen by Glint’s egg as its Champion ? Were they excited ? Honored ? Concerned ?  
> How did the people close to them react to it ?  
> How is their relationship with Aurene, how does it develop ?  
> Did becoming Aurene’s Champion change them in any way, be it physically or mentally ?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy !

> Universe : History's small cuttings with its large axe ([fr] Petites coupes de l’Histoire avec sa grande hache)  
>  Part 4 : Commander Week(-ness) ([fr] La semaine du faible Commandant)  
>  Chapter 2 : Champion ([fr] Championne)

Fear gnawed at her heart as the acidic water of the dead kraits had eaten away at her skin. The uncertainty of the outcome of the fight against Mordremoth. Lotus' tormenting spirit kept wondering if they could defeat the dragon. And if they could, she wondered about the future of the sylvari. All her doubts devoured her from the inside and had ended up leaving a permanent hollow. She had changed so drastically that Canach had come to talk to her privately, worried about her condition. Changed, but not in a good way.  
  
« Even the prematurely born, sun-deprived sprouts are more alive than you are. »

He was worried in his own way and that gave Lotus a smile. Then a smile, half-truths easier to tell than complete lies, an upright stature. Canach walked away, duped. The nervous shaking and the shiver of terror started again immediately, once alone.

She was angry : angry at being further and further away from her initial quest.

In twenty-three years, Lotus had neither found her soulmate nor the man of her Dream. She might have thought that the three years spent as Commander would have distracted her and filled some of the emptiness in her heart. At night, she kept staring at the ceiling as the edges of her vision blurred with tears. Unfortunately, the Pact and the war had only amplified her sadness. The despair of not having found her other half. She felt alone even in the midst of her armies.  
She felt useless and helpless : she was able to slay dragons but she couldn’t find the stranger from the Mist. After all her years, she was still at the starting point, at a standstill. Frustration was whitening the knuckle of her hands and feeding her malaise. She began to have trouble breathing, as her withered hair withered more in the heat of the jungle, while the crying slowly increased.

She joined the group without paying attention to the shadow leaning against the tree. Canach frowned more than usual. He wasn’t good for feelings and comfort, even very clumsy. So he stood back. The youngest wasn’t particularly affected by Lotus, but the shattered bond of the Dream that united all the sylvari made him take care of his little sister. Especially with the Mordremoth’s voice. It was a question of survival.

* * *

  
  
All her dark emotions disappeared in an instant when Lotus ran to throw herself on the egg while Caithe was distracted. The warmth wrapped around her body for a moment. An infinitely soft aura, so soft that the warrior thought she was falling asleep in the clouds. Mellow and fluffy.  
  
Her pink eyes widened as the power of the egg spread through her thin hands and ran through her whole body.  
This magic of adorable warmth. A fragility wrapped in a supernatural but non-threatening softness.  
  
It was their first encounter : the future champion and the elder dragon-to-be.  
Around them, Faolain, Caithe, and the rest of the group were fighting. The more Lotus remembered, the more this moment lasted only a fraction of a second. However, at the moment, the time had stopped. It was just them.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
She found it hard to believe.  
And yet that was the basis of her relationship with Aurene : faith. To believe in your neighbor, to believe in yourself.  
The little dragon had filled the gaping hole in her heart.  
Becoming the Commander had led her to her death. Becoming the champion had brought her back to life.  
The flower on her head was once again beautiful and even had crystalline reflections.  
  
She had gone through all kinds of emotions : wonder, pride, anger, joy, fear, relief, sadness, despair, hope, peace. But these were all good things because they were no longer self-destructive, but full of love. Without Lotus noticing, the name on her wrist slowly faded away while she shone with a prismatic aura.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > I don't own anything ; All the characters belong to ArenaNet except Lotus (Original female sylvari Character).


	3. Free Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What does your Commander like to do in their down time ?  
> Do they have any hobbies or special talents ?  
> Are there any special places they like to go to recharge ?  
> Can they even enjoy their free time or are they a chronic workaholic who plans battles while soaking in a hot spring ?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy !

> Universe : History's small cuttings with its large axe ([fr] Petites coupes de l’Histoire avec sa grande hache)  
>  Part 4 : Commander Week(-ness) ([fr] La semaine du faible Commandant)  
>  Chapter 3 : Free Time ([fr] Temps libre)

  
Lotus didn't really have any passions in her life. She had very little time for herself ; always chasing enemies who were running away when she appeared. The only activities that could look like a hobby were more a way to get rid of her anxiety. Like most people who weren’t feeling well, the commander had found refuge in food, or at least food was at the heart of the evolution of her health and the evolution of the world ; she alternated between starving herself to death and nibbling at all hours of the day and night.  
During this period, when she ate all sorts of dishes, as of a pregnant human female, she spent a lot of time in the kitchen. Her many travels had allowed her to meet the greatest head cook of all races and some with questionable tastes and the most eccentric ideas. _Bloodstone dust ? Seriously ! Look at the Wisteria Whiskington’s face and you will immediately know that it's the worst ingredient of the master chefs._

The sylvari had finally developed a talent for cooking and neither Rytlock nor Canach vomited the meals she served ; she felt that at least it was edible if not succulent.

* * *

  
  
But there was something healthy for her body and mind that the warrior appreciated : calligraphy. Writing soothed her. All she had to do was to write her fears on the paper and then put it on the fire and her fears were gone.  
  
It started with her index finger, which traced the name on her wrist. The delicate sensation that gently sent shivers down her. Then, of course, the silent noise of the ink slipping and mixing with the innocent rubbing of the tip of the pencil as the nib stirred the air in such a fragile breeze.  
  
More than a passion, the writing was a paradoxically soothing habit. Lotus' destiny had begun with her letters engraved in her bark. Then it had continued with the letters of her allies transmitting her all kinds of information. _(The commander put down her pen and stopped her work.) By the way, I still don't know who "E" is._ And the countless Pact papers had followed.  
She didn't particularly like books, hardly ever hung around in Tyrian libraries, and loathed the members of the Durmand Priory. And she certainly didn't like that Camilla who took up her pencil to write her history with an enthusiasm that distorted the reality of her legacy.  
  
The young warrior was better off away from her... away from extreme humidity and absolute heat too. This wetted the paper and dried the ink. In other words, the Heart of Maguuma and the Crystal Desert weren’t popular places for the dragonslayer.  
  
  
Yes, she liked a temperate, harmonious climate, with a preference for heights and a plate of small cakes not far away, despite everything. In this way, she could write whatever she wished, arrogantly overlooking this world that cruelly crushed her every day.  
When she wrote, she felt the burden of Tyria disappearing. Wasn't that the purpose of free time ? To be free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > I don't own anything ; All the characters belong to ArenaNet except Lotus (Original female sylvari Character).


	4. Turning Point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What was a decisive turning point in your Commander’s life ?  
> Was it a great victory ? A great loss ?  
> Something they witnessed someone else do or say that influenced them ?  
> Did they maybe defy expectations that other people set for them ?  
> Was it something that came easy, or did they have to fight for that change to happen ?  
> Did they have any influence over it at all ? Was it a positive change, or would they rather it never happened ?  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you in advance for reading !

> Universe : History's small cuttings with its large axe ([fr] Petites coupes de l’Histoire avec sa grande hache)  
>  Part 4 : Commander Week(-ness) ([fr] La semaine du faible Commandant)  
>  Chapter 4 : Turning point ([fr] Tournant décisif)

  
It was strange to notice that the heart more easily remembered the mistakes made and the bad moments.  
How many victories had the Pact Commander achieved ? How many battles had she won ? Countless. So why did Lotus only remember the failure of her life ? That she had never found her soulmate... not even the Mist stranger.  
Ah, the heart... a mechanism as incomprehensible as the laws governing the worlds. And this frustration was growing ever greater.  
And one fine day... it disappeared. A wind was sweeping away the dust. Tears wiped the dirt from her cheeks once and for all.

It was the turning point.

* * *

  
  
That day when the fire of war engulfed the hero who seeking peace.  
The ground cracked as Lotus narrowly dodged Balthazar's blow once again. Her ankle made a supernatural twist, her body tilted slightly, and then, leaning on the strength of her thighs, she threw herself forward to strike the god's kneecaps with all her might. The divine armor barely broke and the Lotus’ sword miraculously resisted.  
  
_« Feeling mortal yet ? »_  
  
The flaming hand grasped the sylvari's muscular body at the neck before sending her against a pillar of stone.  
  
_« Suffer a little more loudly. Cry out ! Let everyone hear ! »_  
  
Then a storm of fire was summoned. The warrior rolled to her side with difficulty and then sent another sword thrust.  
  
_« How sad for you to die so far from home. »_  
  
As a Sylvari, he had right. It was so true and it pierced her heart deeper than Balthazar's blade. Lotus would have liked to see the Pale Tree one last time, to beg her forgiveness for having failed in her Dream and Wild Hunt.  
Yet the Grove wasn’t the home of the sylvari. Detached from these bonds, detached from these creepers. The Mists where the warrior was floating in splendor were her home. The particles of dust, the grey ashes, the iridescent smoke were the hearty flames that warmed her cold and empty being ; in the absence of an answer from her love. From the beginning, the Mists were her story.  
  
_« And now, you die. »_  
  
Before everything faded away, before everything became completely black and death took over, she could feel the soulbond react. For the first time in her life. It was like a painful scream, no, as a harmonious song. Argh ! She didn't really know how to describe this feeling she had never experienced before.  
But alas, she didn't have the time to question herself and to feel more. She was already dead.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Death wasn’t an easy journey, but the sylvari was used to the difficulty, deep in her soul. She had spent her life walking in the nil sensation of the love coming from a brand with gilded promises.  
Yes, she had fought to the death. And death wasn’t much compared to being alone on earth, believing in a ghostly love.  
Like the trials she had gone through, she passed the various trials of the Domain of the Lost. She went through everything ; the discussion with the Judge, the search for her claimed name, the pursuit of her purpose, the face to face with Palawa Joko. As the storm always passes and gives way to good weather, the warrior went through the events.  
  
  
As she climbed the stairs, she heard the howling of the lich-king, down below. She stopped dead in her tracks. It was... it was impossible !  
  
In front of the two rusty metal gates that locked the access to the magic portal, a man in armor stood upright, proud, solid. It took a wink of an eye for Lotus to recognize the warrior ; it was him ! The unknown man from the Mists.  
This figure who haunted her Dream, like her nightmares. The Mist stranger. After all this time... Lotus didn't know what to do. Should she introduce herself ? Maybe he already knew Lotus ? While the wheelworks were looking for a way to lift the heavy atmosphere between the two, he moved.  
  
  
The familiar warrior took off his armor. But instead of removing his helmet to reveal his face as anyone would have done, he began by removing his left gauntlet.  
  
It didn't take Lotus long to understand.  
  
Oh yes, she understood.  
  
Her eyes began to sting, to burn as she burned with anger.  
Fate was horribly cruel.  
  
The warrior of the Mist revealed his arm human, where a name was wrapped around his wrist in golden letters. And it was obvious, without her even looking, that the writing formed her name. Her name. The one that Lotus had almost forgotten. A few sobs and a laugh pathetically full of fatality.  
  
  
She understood that she hadn’t lost her soulmate, as she had supposed, in her hours of reflection lost in the cold of the evening. In her time, she had lost nothing... because she had never had anything, from the beginning.  
The two figures who had pushed Lotus to go further and further were ones and the same person. From the beginning Edan had been standing in front of her, standing in the grey lines. From the beginning, their love was going up in smoke.  
How many years had she spent thinking that there were two people on her side ? All elapsed seasons to understand that she had lived in the face of the inevitable truth.  
She was going to fail.  
Coping with her death was one thing, but there was too much information.  
Too much.  
  
  
Edan murmured and Lotus immediately jumped up, forcing her to stand up. Through her blurred vision, ravaged by tears, she vaguely distinguished the man opening his arms, offering her a hug.  
This was unfair.  
She rushed in as if she had waited all her life for someone to reach out to her.  
  
The embrace was so comfortable despite the heavy armor of the two warriors. So nice to be with him.  
  
And his voice.  
He kept whispering, calling out to her. He said her name.  
No one could pronounce it. She remembered the name-stealers-lost-spirits who, after being defeated, had reproached her for having a name that was too complicated to take.  
No one could pronounce her real name and people got tired of trying so quickly.  
  
And he... he pronounced it so well, so easily, that it was wonderfully beautiful.  
It was as if he had spent his life pronouncing this name... as if, in the evening, before going to sleep, he practiced it, by contemplating the starry sky... as if, every night, in secret, far from the others, alone, with his mark, he continued to call this golden name. This name so precious to his heart.  
  
It was so unfair.  
So unjust that her teeth were smashing against each other when she clenched her jaws, distraught by the wrath that animated her. The blood from her bitten tongue was bitterly accumulating.  
  
Fate was more terrible than she could have imagined.  
Why ? Why did she deserve such cruelty ? And why in spite of it, Edan whispered his name again and again in absolute sweetness. A gentleness in which Lotus could well drown.  
  
Truly unfair.  
Was this the love that was destined ? One condemned living in the hope of that love that could arise at any moment. The other condemned suffering the despair of this love that will never come.  
  
Her thoughts broke at Edan's delicate lips which landed on Lotus'. His armored hand wrapped around the waist of the sylvari while the other took her face.  
She was lost in the sensation of the kiss as soft as his voice. Warmth emanated from their bond. It was like molten gold, slowly melting away. But it wasn't painful. It was somehow pleasant. And when the scent of old books and the velvet feeling disappeared, Lotus opened her swollen eyes... this time and definitively, the Mists had totally swept away from her warrior.  
In front of Lotus, the gates had opened and there was only the portal to the world of the living. She wiped away her last tears, sighed ironically of her Dream come true, and then went into the light.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
In the shadow of the Elona’s dunes, the Commander and her companions advanced in search of the little dragon.  
  
« Are you sure everything is all right, Commander ? » Canach's thorny voice was surprisingly not sharp or prickly. « You are dead, but it sounds more as if centuries have hit you. »  
  
No sooner had he said his words than he froze because his sister was smiling at him.  
  
« Don't worry. It's all right. »  
  
She continued on her way.  
Her smile... for the first time... was sincere. So pure that the cadet remembered the Pale Mother's face. And from her back, he could see that her hand, once folded over her wrist, was now fully wrapped around the hilt of her sword. A sword she had been carrying since the day he had met her. And surely she had been carrying this sword long before they met.  
Canach resumed his walk and followed in his younger sister's footsteps, shrugging his shoulders and gazing furtively at the lotus flower shining in the sun. He continued to walk through the scent of the desert and the murky lines of the horizon, enjoying a little the movement of the sand beneath his feet.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
Once she thought about it, calmly, she thought that everything was normal. Her Dream took its place in the voluptuousness of the Tyrian essence. It had been normal for her whole story to end in the Mists because it all began there.  
  
The sun-colored four letters had disappeared ; around her wrist, there was no more mark. Lotus could now only see Aurene, although she could still feel the weight of the sword in her back.  
It was no longer a burden. It was more like two powerfully trained hands pushing her forward and giving her momentum.  
Her death had been the point of no return of her existence because Lotus wouldn’t go back to her former life for anything in the world. No more bond was holding her. Now, the warrior will never look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > I don't own anything ; All the characters belong to ArenaNet except Lotus (Original female sylvari Character) & Edan (Original male human Character).


	5. Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who does your Commander consider their family ? Do they care about blood relations ?  
> Are their relatives still alive ? What is or was their relationship with them ?  
> Do they surround themselves with friends that they consider their family ? What is their attitude towards marriage and having kids of their own ?  
> Is family important to them at all ?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy !

> Universe : History's small cuttings with its large axe ([fr] Petites coupes de l’Histoire avec sa grande hache)  
>  Part 4 : Commander Week(-ness) ([fr] La semaine du faible Commandant)  
>  Chapter 5 : Family ([fr] Famille)

  
Family.

A strong word that is as powerful as it is meaningless.

A family of blood -correction, of sap-, Lotus had one. Many brothers and sisters : she didn't know many of them and most of them greeted her militarily. A mother : a loving figure whose smile didn't warm a piece of the matte green bark.  
And recently she had met her father before killing him in his own mind and then with the family blade granted to her older brother.

From the first day her swamp-blue feet had stepped on the ground of reality, Lotus knew that the term 'family' was wrong for her. The Dream, the supreme link of the sylvari, hadn’t shown her the reality or the issues at stake. No, Lotus had to make do with the whistling of the wind eroding a stone statue, a symbol of the past. Except that it wasn’t a stone statue but a man.

It didn't make sense.

And that was exactly the definition of family, for Lotus.

Family... those people who will always be at your side but will eventually disappear. Those people you cherished and on whom the wrath of fate was unleashed.  
Family for the warrior was of no interest ; it was just another weight in her quest. She didn't care about her family.

  


Then she arrived.

Aurene.

Full of light.

* * *

  
  
Sylvari cannot give birth, so the concept of 'child' was somewhat strange to them. Yet Aurene was a child... her child. Her baby.  
Little by little, Lotus changed. She had become tender. The fire of the dragon had warmed her cold core. The sylvari wrapped herself in Aurene's affection, even though fate had always denied her a soulmate.  
  
She had been searching for Edan for so long, that now, free from this bond, she would focus only on the descendant. She had been chained up for so many years that she wasn't ready to put a ring on her finger right away. She would rather have the rope around her neck.  
  
  


* * *

  
  
A smile that brought a soft sensation in her chest. A ray of sunshine that filled her bark with magic.  
  
There was also the Dragon's Watch.  
If the warrior crossed the Mists to see other realities, other versions of the commander, she would have seen that most people considered their guild to be their family. But Lotus considered everyone equally, with politeness and respect.  
  
However, in the prismatic light, Lotus realized that Canach, Rytlock, Taimi, and her other companions deserved more than to be treated like any stranger. After all they had done. After all she had done, they were still there, at her side.  
And even though the fear that they would disappear in a misty smoke was still there, she gave them affection. That strange emotion that the world had long denied her. Even if sometimes the feeling came back, a laugh escaped from the warrior and the folds around her eyes showed the river of happiness that was finally flowing. The pollen and bioluminescence of the dawn child were in perfect harmony in a gilded way. A gold of great richness. A victorious gold in all its beautiful glory.  
  
  
Her life had been summed up in the blood of war, lost, alone, in the thick silver dust of proto-reality. She was happy to have people at her side. Yes, the commander was very lucky : her friends were her family. Her family was the members she had chosen and who had chosen him. And in spite of the arguments and disagreements, the family stayed around the same home because… that's what family was to Lotus, once she left the rusty blade of the time aside. To love each other in the hatred of adversity. Where her quest had been of unprecedented importance, now her family and especially Aurene was the most important thing in her life. The fateful, dark sword reflected a silhouette with pink features radiating light.  
  
And considering her relationships, the Commander noticed that her family was perhaps larger than she wanted to admit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> > I don't own anything ; All the characters belong to ArenaNet except Lotus (Original female sylvari Character).


End file.
